Sunday, 30 March 2014

There are
many ways to induce me to buy something but one of the quickest is to make the
small bottle a replica of the large therefore making it look cute in comparison. I realise on reading this some of you will be
thinking ‘what on earth is she on about’ whereas others will be nodding,
thinking, ‘yeah, I totally get that’. To
cut a long story short I bought a miniature of Disaronno on a whim in a
supermarket. (The egg in the photo is to illustrate how tiny and cuuuuuuuute
the little bottle is!)

Having
purchased my cute miniature I had to come up with a way to use it. For those that haven’t tried it, Disaronno is
a brand of amaretto, an almond liqueur.
Instantly I started thinking about an almond based cupcake so adapted my
orange and almond cupcake recipe by losing the orange and replacing it with liqueur soaked raisins. I do have a
fondness for booze soaked raisins and see no reason why they should only
feature in Christmas baking.

Mr CC
always announces loudly, lest I forget his views on the matter, that the best
frosting/buttercream is cream cheese based.
Seriously. He says this whenever
the subject comes up on cookery shows or in conversation. I get it: he likes cream cheese
frosting. All the (not so) subliminal
messages must have worked because what’s on this cupake? Cream cheese frosting! It works well here as it holds it own against
the bold flavour of the cupcake whilst adding another flavour and texture. A lighter buttercream could get lost.

The
cupcakes took on a little more colour than I’d normally like due to being
overbaked by 3 minutes (which didn’t thankfully affect their taste or texture). How can I be so precise? Because I was hoovering and didn’t hear the
timer; when I did it had been beeping for 3 minutes! That’ll teach me for trying to
multitask. Kids – don’t be like me. Don’t hoover and bake; it isn’t worth
it. This is actually one of the things
Mr CC mocks me for over any other: refusing to accept that some items are
designed to be mobile. Hence, our
cordless phone sits in the base unit and is never anywhere near me when it
rings and, why our kitchen timer – with a clip on the back so it can attach to anything – was in the kitchen beeping
away while I was hoovering the bedroom.
I’d like to say I’d learned my lesson, but.......

While the
Disaronno is a dominant ingredient of the cupcake it’s worth noting that the
entire 18 cucpakes use only one a miniature bottle, so if you’re not keen on
alcohol please don’t be discouraged from this recipe. Also, there is only 1 tablespoon of alcohol
that isn’t cooked.

The
Disaronno plumped up the raisins and made them much juicier, almost like
berries. One of my eaters, who didn’t
know the method for making the cupcake, commented on this; I always think if
someone notices without prompting then it must be true!

Sunday, 23 March 2014

This recipe came about as I was thinking how I could make a
classic Victoria sponge but dress it up differently enough so it felt like a
new cake.Making it into a chocolate
cake was an obvious idea – most sponges will adapt to a chocolate sponge by
replacing some of the flour with cocoa; as long as the flour and cocoa equal
the original flour weight it should work.

The sponge manages to be rich and intensely flavoured whilst
light in texture. I opted for a three
rather than four egg mix as the thick layer of ganache adds some height to the
cake and I wanted a slice to fit on a plate!
I know the sensible option would’ve been to stick with a bigger sponge
and just serve it on dinner plates but I had a rare moment of restraint and
downsized my mix!

I love the classic method for making a Victoria sponge as it’s
so simple: weigh the eggs in their shells and whatever they weigh is the amount
for the other ingredients i.e. butter, sugar and flour (or flour + cocoa if
making a chocolate sponge). It
guarantees a perfect sponge every time and is satisfyingly old fashioned.

The whipped cream is a lovely filling for the cake as it
lightens what could otherwise be rather too much richness. OK, you’ll know me well enough by now to
understand that I don’t ever think anything can be too rich, but I’m trying to sound
like a normal person and that’s the sort of thing I hear people say!

Sunday, 16 March 2014

This recipe is adapted from a lime and coconut tart in the
current edition of Delicious magazine. I
adore coconut but find that lime can overpower it, so made a few switches and
this incredibly tasty tart was born!

Mr CC came home from work with something rather wonderful
this week; one of his colleagues keeps chickens and brought in a spare box of
eggs. I have never baked anything before
where I have known the names of the hens who laid the (beautiful) eggs – well done
ladies, keep up the good work!

When this tart is baking the smell is divine; pineapple and
coconut is a combination where their aromas make it impossible to think of
anything other than sunshine and warmth.
Luckily it was a sunny day....but perhaps a few degrees off a Caribbean
climate!

It had such a wonderful colour when baked, although I can't help feeling my efforts are wasted. Mr CC told me how much he liked the pastry (aka biscuit base) and, when asked what flavours he could detect, the CCD guessed 'egg and lemon'. That well known combination. How often have you heard someone say, 'ooh, I couldn't half fancy a slice of egg and lemon tart'? Mr Kipling is probably rushing to his development kitchen as I type.

The recipe said to bake the tart in a loose bottomed flan
tin. I made the executive decision to
use a disposable foil tin because I was worried how ‘watertight’ the biscuit
tart shell would be. If you use a loose
bottomed tin I recommend wrapping the outside in foil, unless you fancy a few
hours cleaning sticky tart filling from the bottom of your, albeit wonderfully tropical
smelling, oven!

For the
filling:
160ml coconut milk
250ml coconut cream – I couldn’t find this so used more coconut milk, this may
have been why mine took longer to cook
397g condensed milk
140ml pineapple juice
2 large eggs, and 5 yolks

Add the butter and blitz again until it’s the consistency of
wet sand.

Tip into either a 23cm loose bottomed flan tin that is 5cm
deep, or – as I used – a disposable foil 25cm deep pie dish.

Press the crumbs over the base and up the sides of the tin
making sure there are no holes.

Refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until it is golden and smelling
toasted.

Leave to cool completely.

Reduce the oven temperature to 130°C/fan oven 110°C/260°F/gas
mark 3/4. (This is what the recipe said,
however I don’t think my tart would ever have set at this temperature so, after
about 40 minutes I increased it to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4 and my
tart set after a further 15 minutes.
Next time I would start it with this temperature and maybe check after
25-30 minutes. I know all ovens are different,
so I thought it best to share my experience.)

Now make the filling: Whisk together all the ingredients
then pour, through a sieve, into the biscuit base. Don’t be tempted to overfill it. I did and spent the next 10 minutes wiping
sticky filling from my kitchen counter, cupboard doors and floor. It wasn’t fun. Any leftover filling can be poured into an
oven proof dish and baked alongside the tart.

Bake for approximately 50 minutes or until there’s just a
hint of wobble in the centre of the tart – note my observations re oven
temperature above.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

Refrigerate.

Just before serving, decorate the tart with whipped cream
and pineapple chunks. I piped my cream
but it would look as nice spooned on.

Sunday, 9 March 2014

Seriously – this recipe only requires the hob, no oven at
all! I know it’s hard to believe. This is an incredibly rich and indulgent
dessert and is so simple to make I predict it will become a much loved and
trusted recipe to fall back on when you need to rustle up something special at
speed.

The chocolate filling is basically a thick ganache that has
been allowed to set in the fridge. It is
so creamy and rich that even I couldn’t manage a huge slice...trust me, I
tried!

The biscuit base is similar to the traditional cheesecake
biscuit base but with a twist – the addition of golden syrup; this adds a sweet
note and works well with the unsweetened ganache.

This is one of my rare recipes where everyone in the family
had a second slice – it seemed to suit all tastes, preferences, age groups!

Ingredients

For the
biscuit base:
200g biscuits – hobnobs, digestives or shortbreads will all work
100g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup or honey

For the
ganache:
200ml whipping cream, plus a further 200ml for whipping and piping on top
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate

To decorate: raspberries or chocolates – I used Twirl pieces

Method

Place the biscuits, butter and golden syrup in a food
processor and blitz until you have moist crumbs. If you don’t have a food processor, place the
biscuits in a bag and beat to crumbs with a rolling pin. Then put in a bowl and add the butter
(melted) and golden syrup.

Sunday, 2 March 2014

Can you believe the last ‘Famous Faces’ post was April
2013? Why have I left it so long? I have no answer to that as I do have a stash
of them to post. For those of you (all
of you I’d imagine, given my tardiness!) who’ve forgotten what this is all
about, basically I wrote to a bunch of celebrities I liked and asked them to
tell me their favourite cake. Which I
then bake and post the recipe for.

I thought I’d kick start my Famous Faces posts with a
national treasure – June Whitfield. Hard though it is to believe, June started
her career on the radio in the 1940s! To
me, she’s one of those utterly timeless people who never appears to age. I remember her in my childhood from TV shows
such as ‘Terry & June’ but perhaps my favourite role of hers, and I suspect
the one most known to non-UK readers of my site, was as Edina’s mother in ‘Absolutely
Fabulous’ where her seemingly innocent yet withering put downs were delivered
with brilliant ease.

June has selected Genoa cake although she caveats that with ‘not
too often’. Maybe we’ll have to politely
disagree on that one....!

Genoa cake is a British classic and is based on thePandolce cake which originated in 16th centuryGenoaas aChristmas cake. It’s
lighter than a traditional Christmas heavy fruitcake (think more the texture of
a tea loaf) and has no icing. The top is
decorated with cherries and almonds. It seems, based on all the pictures I’ve
seen, to be more commonly baked in a loaf tin rather than a round tin. I have no problem with that – it is so much
easier to cut a loaf cake!

Read this great novel!

Look at this great website

Follow my ambitious attempt to find a recipe for a cake, biscuit, pie or tart for every single one of the 39 traditional English counties!

The Caked Crusader and Boy Wonder

Cartoon by Cakeyboi

About Me

So, the answer to the question you’re all asking: who am I? Well, a superhero never reveals their identity. I think it’s stated somewhere in the contract when you sign up for superhero-dom. Let’s just call me THE CAKED CRUSADER. By day (and night if I’m being honest) a mild-mannered City professional, but at weekends I become THE CAKED CRUSADER. Tirelessly fighting anti-cake propaganda and cake-related injustices – for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, ALWAYS NEEDS CAKE (we’ll just skip over the fact that it’s usually me).

Batman’s got the batmobile, batcave etc. Superman does just great what with being able to fly and being really strong. Spiderman’s got that web thing going on. But I have better than them. For I have a credit card and could get one of these:

The purpose of my blog is simple – to spread the word that CAKE IS GOOD.Yes, it is calorific; that is why it tastes so nice.Yes, too much of it is bad for you; that’s what ‘too much’ means.Yes, we’re all told to eat healthily and we know that we should. But ask yourself this – and look very deeply into your soul before answering – when has a cup of tea and a carrot ever cheered you up? However, put that carrot into a cake and happiness will ensue. Quod erat demonstrandum – CAKE IS GOOD.

This site will catalogue cakes I have unleashed unto the world and my thoughts thereon.

By the way, I will never recommend how many portions you should get out of a cake because we’re all different. Plus, it will be very embarrassing when I say it serves 4 and you get 20 portions out of it.

WARNING: Too much time spent on this blog may cause hunger.

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Cake Achievement in Film and Television Arts (CAFTA)

Have you seen a cake in a film or tv show that deserves recognition? Has a cupcake upstaged a beefcake?

If so, please let me know and that cake could win a coveted CAFTA award. Email me your suggestions, with a photo of the cake if possible.

About Me

I am a 40-something Chartered Accountant working in the square mile.
My main hobbies at the moment are baking, and setting the world record for the number of cake tins owned by one person.
I spend far too much time watching Spongebob Squarepants and would love to try a Krabby Patty...I know, I know - it's not real.